At COMATCH, each consul­tant brings a unique range of expe­ri­ence and perspec­tive to the table. We spoke to Max Lion Scherer about foun­ding compa­nies, his successes, his fail­ures, and what really matters to him profes­sio­nally.

Max Lion Scherer

Max Lion Scherer started his career at BCG. Now he is a serial entre­pre­neur and founded compa­nies such as Bona­tivo and Wild­corn.

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I went to school in Berlin, studied geography, did alright, got some scho­l­ar­ships, went to the US and when I came back I was pretty sure I was going to get my PhD. I got started on my master’s thesis at the same time as two friends, and the three of us got so frustrated with academic processes that we handed in our theses and were done with school. We decided that getting our PhDs was out of the question for the moment, and then we decided to build tools to remedy that situa­tion. That was my first expe­ri­ment with entre­pre­neurship.

We were very green I’d say. We expected to build an awesome product and then ever­ything else would happen by itself. It was a very itera­tive process. In the end, it turned out to be nothing like what I expected. We tried to make this project into a success. Unfor­tu­n­a­tely, there was a compe­titor out there that was not EU-funded as we were, but priva­tely-funded and to be honest, also went about it in a more profes­sional manner. After two and a half years and a steep lear­ning curve but a product that was, in the end, infe­rior to the other guys, we decided to call it quits.

I joined BCG, the first company I applied to and stayed with them for three and a half years which was longer than I expected. I think I took full advan­tage of well, let’s be honest, the life­style with paid expenses and the chance to travel around and work for, in some cases, very inte­re­sting projects but always intel­lec­tually and work-ethi­cally very chal­len­ging projects. After about three years at BCG, I got that itch again and I started thin­king how I could get back to that founder life­style. I wanted to feel very passio­nate about a topic and to wanted to work on it every day and to make some­thing. I came up with two areas where I wanted to go, which were sports and food.

I basi­cally got kicked out of the room for all my sports ideas but my food thoughts were received quite well and I was on a very good track to start an online meat deli­very service. Rocket Internet contacted me and that’s how I got connected to Bona­tivo. My founder from then, we hit it off quite well and we started to try and build this busi­ness which was very chal­len­ging. In the end, it wasn’t one of those fast turno­vers that Rocket is really known for, so, unfor­tu­n­a­tely, we exited in July 2016.

When you are the guy foun­ding the busi­ness, you don’t need to be someone who knows some­thing in perfect detail but you need to be able to grasp a lot quickly, and you need to most import­antly, moti­vate people that know things better than you. I’m pretty sure I’m going to start a company again, but this time on my own, or at least not with a big incu­bator. Working as a consul­tant is also enjoy­able. I get to pick and choose which clients I work with, I get to decide on the topics and how I work on them. If clients don’t like me, that’s fine. If I don’t like them, that’s also fine. It’s a big diffe­rence to working in a more insti­tu­tio­na­lised way, so it’s fun.

Max Lion Scherer

Max Lion Scherer started his career at BCG. Now he is a serial entre­pre­neur and founded compa­nies such as Bona­tivo and Wild­corn.